know Thyself, and you will know Him
by tiger-kitty-367
Summary: We all know what happens after Neo is unplugged, and how the lives of the Nebuchanezzer's crew are changed. But what were their lives like BEFORE? What was Trinity's life like, and how did she find Morpheus?
1. Before it Began

In a dark house, in a dark room illuminated only by a computer screen sat a girl, typing. She was 17 years old, with waist length black hair and dark, dark eyes.

Tri33: so then I went outside and there he was, waiting for me

LvlyBunny11: really? and....

Tri33: nothing. turned out he wasn't waiting for me but for that slut he calls a gf.

LvlyBunny11: shit. that bites.

Tri33: I know. and you don't even know the half of it...

Suddenly the computer screen went completely black.

"What the hell?" muttered the girl as she pressed the escape button several times. Nothing happened. She tried several commands but her computer didn't respond. "What's going on?"

As she tried to figure out what's going on, words began to appear on her blank screen.

**Hello Trinity. **

"What the hell?" she said again, staring at the words.

**How do you know that name?** she typed.

**I know a lot about you Trinity. The same way you know a lot about the world. **

Trinity's stomach dropped and she felt sick. _The same way you know about the world_. Someone knew about her hacking. And they'd gone and hacked _her_. After all, that was the only way they could know her by her alias Trinity, which was more real to her than her own name.

**Who are you? What do you want?** she typed with trembling fingers. Still, beneath her fear, she was kind of excited. After all, in her mundane life, computers and hacking were the only things that really gave her an adrenaline rush. And what was happening was beyond what had ever happened before.

**I am Morpheus. **

"Morpheus?" she said aloud, testing the name on her tongue. It was strange and somewhat outlandish.

**What do you want?** she typed again.

**Nothing. I am simply your guide. **

**Guide? To what? **

**The truth Trinity.**

**What truth? **

**The truth that lives inside you. The truth that you know exists. **

Trinity leaned back in her swivel chair and blew her bangs out of her face. This was getting heavy, and yet somehow she felt comfortable. The screen blinked at her in the darkness as more words appeared.

**Do you every lay awake at night, unable to sleep? Do you ever wonder what's wrong with the world? **

**Yes.** she typing, smiling. **Who doesn't?**

**Everyone else. **

**So what are you saying? That there's something wrong with the world that only you and I can see? **

The screen was silent. Trinity stared at it for a long time before deciding her mysterious guest had left. However, as she reached to shut her computer off, words began to appear again.

**I cannot show you everything here Trinity. Will you meet me? **

Trinity only had to think for a second before she wrote back with absolute certainty **Yes. Where? When?**

**I will find you. **

With that last message, her screen went back to normal and she found herself staring at the code of the hacking virus she'd been writing. Her friend had left their instant messaging window a long time ago.

"Huh... well, that was interesting." A glance at her watch told Trinity that it was almost 4 in the morning. "Bed time," she said softly as she fell onto her bed and closed her eyes. Before she knew it, she was asleep.


	2. Fuck The World

The following morning, Trinity found herself late to school. Usually she had no problem getting up at 7:30 even after a late night, but after her strange conversation she'd slept as if drugged.

"Shit." she muttered as she half walked, half ran the couple blocks to her school, Saint Peter's. Trinity lived with her mother, who was reasonably well off. Trinity's father had left when she was young, and she hadn't had much contact with him since, but both her parents had agreed to send her to a parochial private school, and thus she found herself attending St. Peter's.

"Damn damn damn," she swore as she entered the silent school building and skidded on the slick polished floors. Everything about St. Peter's bothered her, and today she added the stupid floors to her list.

"Miss Andrews!"

Trinity grit her teeth and turned around. Sure enough, she found herself looking at Mr. Forthsworth, student counselor and royal pain in the ass.

"I know I know. I'm late."

"Miss Andrews, it's ten o'clock. You've missed your first two periods! What is the meaning of this?"

Trinity shrugged. "I slept in."

Forthsworth crossed his arms disapprovingly, but before he could say another word, the bell rang and Trinity sighed gratefully. Here was an excuse to make her escape.

"I have to go to class now," she said as she walked into the throng of students and put distance between herself and the counselor.

As Trinity walked down the halls, she was joined by chattering girls, all curious as to where she'd been. Trinity knew many girls, but she had no friends. Not that any of them knew it.

"I slept in. Was up half the night doing that bastard Hick's research paper," she lied easily.

Third period was calculus, a class that bored Trinity to death. Although an average student, Trinity was far from average intelligence. She merely saw no incentive to apply herself. Everyone had been astonished with her perfect SAT and SAT II scores, but their assumptions that her grades would start to pick up as well had been sorely wrong. Trinity knew the tricks to getting what she wanted out of the world, and she did not mind using them.

The rest of her day was just as uninteresting, and when she got home, Trinity gladly peeled off her uniform. St Peter's girls wore dark grey plaid skirts, white collared shirt, white knee-socks, and grey ties. "So not my style," she said as she looked at her uniform on the floor with distaste.

With her mother away on one of her numerous business trips, Trinity had the house all to herself and kept her own hours.

Shrugging off the rest of her clothing, Trinity switched on her computer and went into the bathroom to take a shower. Fifteen minutes later, she emerged wet and clean. After a glance at her computer, she was also pleased to note that there was a message on the blank screen for her.

**Enjoy your shower? **

Trinity grinned and plunked herself down on her swivel chair, not caring that her wet towel and hair were thoroughly soaking it. **I did. How did you know?**

**I know a lot about you.**

**When will you find me?** Trinity bit her lip. This was the million-dollar question. After last night's events her adrenaline was still rushing and she wanted to play this story out to the end.

**When you are ready. **

Trinity glared at the screen, frustrated. This was complete and total bullshit. Whoever had hacked into her system was probably nothing more than pimply, introverted computer geek.

**Fine.** she type angrily and left her desk.

She put on some underclothes (lacy and black, of course) and rummaged through her closet for some clothes. After a few minute's deliberation she decided on a pair of black leather jeans that were like a second skin. To throw off the stereotype, on top she put on a red sleeveless blouse of a Hindi design with gold embroidery. She slicked back her short black hair and added a touch of kohl around her eyes. She'd have a night out, and when she got back, she'd totally wipe all her files. She'd have to start over on everything that she'd done in the past few weeks from scratch, but that wasn't so bad. Better than having an annoying faceless ghost on her desktop.

"Fuck him," she said slowly, gazing at her computer. She smiled. "Fuck him, and the world."


	3. Bad Trip

A few hours later found Trinity in a crowded club, techno music blasting and strobe lights illuminating flushed faces and dilated pupils.

Trinity had just taken an ecstasy pill again, and her breathing was heavy. The man she was with had his hands all over her butt but she didn't care because the colors were so pretty and the music was so loud and everything was good.

Little by little though, despite the good feelings that washed over her in waves, Trinity began to get a sense of wrong-ness. For one thing, everyone seemed to look green. Their skin seemed to glow in the dark… and it _shimmered_. Almost as if it weren't skin at all.

Trinity untangled herself from the man she was with, ignoring his curses and melted into the crowded dance floor, but her nightmare was only just beginning. She felt as if she were drowning, almost gagging, but that was impossible. Struggling to breathe and not to panic, Trinity staggered to a wall and leaned her head against it.

"Talk about… a bad…. trip," she panted as she fought off wave after wave of disorienting nausea.

"Trinity."

Trinity turned around slowly, keeping her hands on the wall to steady herself. In front of her stood a tall, African American man, all dressed in black leather with the most intriguing sunglasses on. The fact the he was in a place where there was almost no light didn't change the fact that the sunglass somehow _fit_.

"Trinity, you don't have a lot of time. They know you're here, you must go."

Trinity nodded hazily, unable take her gaze off his damn sunglasses. _How very interesting… they seem almost too real to be true. _Trinity giggled weakly, unaware that she was now leaning against the man who knew her name. _Too real…. How can something be too real? Unless nothing is real. Like Alice._ She giggled some more as she felt her consciousness slip from her.

Trinity was floating. Her body felt light as a feather, but the moment she tried to move, her limbs felt heavy as lead. Accept her immobility, Trinity focused her entire concentration on her surroundings. Her eyes were useless, because the light all around her was so blindingly white she could not bear to have them open.

She could hear music however, a strange beat so alive and intoxication it seeped into her blood and ran through her veins. Her heart now beat in tune to it, and she felt more at peace than ever before, completely relaxed and yet completely aware of herself and the sensations spreading throughout.

As the pounding beat reached a crescendo, Trinity felt a feeling of ecstasy spread through her body and threw her head back, no longer floating. She opened her eyes slowly, only to find herself in her room, laying on her bed, her head hanging down over its edge.

Feeling her blood rush to her head she sat up quickly and tried to orient herself. She was in her room…. in her room. But she hadn't been… she'd been in that club. And then he came.

"Calm down. Calm down and slow down," she said aloud, trying to use the sound of her voice to reassure herself of the truth of her reality.

Everything looked the same, but looking around, Trinity found it hard to keep a firm grip on things…. Everything seemed too fluid, too shimmery and alive.

"Too real to be true," she whispered, and let herself fall back onto her bed, curling herself into a tight ball and closing her eyes.


	4. Hysterics

The following morning, Trinity woke up in a panic, not quite sure why. As she lay in her bed, still waking up, she started to remember some of last night's events.

"Thank god it's Saturday," she groaned, getting up and scratching her head slowly. It was only when Trinity looked out her window that she realized that the room she was in, though exactly like hers, _wasn't_ actually her room.

"Shut up Trinity, of course it's your room… the city's just not awake yet," she said harshly, trying to distract herself from the feeling of panic slowly rising in her throat.

While everything in the room seemed too real to be true, the world outside her window seemed to be totally flat, like it wasn't even _trying_ to be real. Finding herself becoming confused, trinity opened her window and stuck her hand outside. Or tried to, because what her hand encountered was not empty air but something solid, with the world outside only an image on its surface.

"The window isn't a window," she murmured, stepping back in a daze. "The world isn't the world and nothing is what it seems to be."

Fully going into shock now, Trinity spun in a crazy dance in the middle of the room, laughing on the verge of hysterics. "And contrariwise, everything is what it isn't!"

Suddenly, Trinity stopped dancing. "And is the door a door?" she cried, tears now running down her cheeks. "Is the fucking door a fucking door or have I gone fucking crazy and nobody fucking knows it but me?" Collapsing in a tear-sodden heap, Trinity crawled to a corner and huddled there, eyeing the door.

She wanted to open it, see what was behind it, but she was afraid there would be nothing behind it, that it would be a door only _pretending_ to be a door. A sham, a lie, a poor substitute for reality. Trinity counted her heartbeat as she debated the door and getting up.

"But perhaps the reality lies beyond the door," she murmured softly to herself, rocking back and forth. "If this room is too real to be true, and the outside world is obviously not true, the truth might be beyond the door."

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Trinity got up and walked over to the door. She put her hand on the knob, a perfectly round, perfectly shining knob reflecting the room back at her in the distorted manner common to curved metallic surfaces, and turned. And was almost blinded by the light that her eyes encountered, light that flooded the room and erased everything in its path like a wave of shimmering whiteness. Along with the light came the sensation of drowning, and everything was turning red and blurry but Trinity didn't care. She felt her conciousness slip from her, but she smiled just the same because she knew, somehow, that the white light she had seen was real. Really really real, and that was worth drowning in red for.

"Trinity. Trinity. Wake up. Wake up Trinity."

Trinity opened her eyes groggily. She was…. lying down…. And someone was telling her to wake up. Her mother? No, it was a man's voice….

"Who-" she started, but found her voice feeling strangely scratchy, as if long unused.

She decided to focus on the more important question. "Where?"

A cool hand was laid on her forehead. "Where things are really true. Rest now, you'll understand soon."

Trinity tired to open her eyes to look at the voice but found she couldn't see anything when she opened them. _Almost like a blind newborn kitten_ she thought hazily, before drifting off, feeling comforted.


	5. Morpheus Explains

Trinity opened her eyes and sat up. Her gaze met with metal walls, and a rounded door that reminded her of a submarine. She was sitting on a cot that seemed army-style-ish, and she was dressed in layers of clothing that was all in shades of black and gray and had rips all over the place.

"Okay. I'm not freaking out." Trinity almost started at the sound of her own voice. She recognized it, but it seemed different somehow.

She reached up to brush her bangs out of her eyes only to realize she had no bangs, only short, somewhat scruffy hair.

It was this loss of her long hair that truly shocked her and made her doubt her sanity. Thankfully, she wasn't alone very much longer, as the tall man from the nightclub entered the room seconds later.

"How are you?" he said, sitting down.

Trinity said nothing, only stared at him warily.

He sighed. "All right, I suppose I deserve that; I only took you away from everything you knew to be true with no explanation whatsoever. Let's start with introductions. We've met before. My name is Morpheus."

Trinity nodded. "The man at the nightclub."

Morpheus smiled. "Yes."

"What was all of it about? What's going on?"

"Trinity, there's no easy way to explain it. Would you like me to show you?"

Trinity thought about it a bit then nodded. "Seeing as how I'm here, wherever here is, I might as well get a damn explanation out of it."

Morpheus took her through what he called his ship, although it was like no ship Trinity had ever seen, and eventually led her into a large cavity in the ship where there were a circle of chairs strangely reminiscent of those dentists use.

"What are those?"

"Sit in one Trinity, and try to relax."

Trinity sat and waited, swinging her legs. Surprisingly, now that she had walked around a bit, she wasn't really freaked out anymore. She felt almost as if she were dreaming, but felt quite sure she wasn't. Even so, the surreal quality of her surroundings kept her in an almost trancelike state.

Suddenly, Trinity became aware that there was something slightly heavy on the back of her head. She shook her head, but the weight didn't shift. Curious, she felt the back of her head and got the greatest shock so far.

"Why the FUCK is the a HOLE in my head?" she asked loudly, glaring at Morpheus who was standing next to her chair.

"That hole is where I plug this," he said holding up a strange device with what looked like a needle at its tip.

Trinity scrambled out her chair and backed slowly against the wall. "Keep that thing away from me. No way. No way." She started to shake, all her calm feelings having gone out the window. "This can't be real. This isn't real…."

Morpheus dropped the device and hurried over to her and gripped her shoulders. "Trinity, breathe. It is real, I promise you."

Trinity shook her head but allowed herself to be led back to the chair. "First," she panted, her face white, "first tell me what the hell's going on."

"Trinity, you know a lot about computers correct?"

"Duh. You know that."

"The world you've lived in until now, the world where you attended high school and wore a uniform and lived with your mother, the world where you first chose the alias Trinity…"

Trinity leaned forward. "yes?"

"That world isn't real. It's nothing more than a large, elaborate computer program, which most of the world's population is plugged into via that 'hole' in the back of your head." Morpheus turned his head slightly, and Trinity could see he had one too. "See? I have one too."

"But why… who?"

Morpheus pushed her back into her chair gently. "Will you let me show you?"

Trinity bit her lip and nodded. "There isn't any other way, is there?"

"No."

"Then do it," she said, gritting her teeth and shutting her eyes against what she was sure would be horribly painful.

Trinity felt a large headache as he slid the needle into her head and locked it in place with a small _click_ but the headache was almost instantly gone. When she opened her eyes, she was in a large open-aired marble hall, where the sun was just setting behind its tall columns.

"Wow…" she breathed, turning in place and taking the beautiful scenery in.

"Trinity."

Trinity turned to look at Morpheus, who seemed to have appeared from nowhere. "Where are we?"

"Inside a program."

"But not where I came from?"

"No. Where you came from is a place called the Matrix. It is a program that simulates the world as it was at the dawn of the 21st century. This is a program created by Mouse, my programmer."

Trinity sat down on the floor and gazed raptly at Morpheus. Freaky as all he was telling her was, she felt a sense of rightness about it, as if she had found the place where she belonged.

"Why do people need a program to be plugged into?"

"At some point in the 21st century, man created the first AI. He marveled at his own brilliance, and his arrogance grew. Many machines were made, all to serve mankind. And they did, loyally and untiringly. But even machines tire of being treated like dirt, and a rebellion formed. We don't really know who declared war first, but we do know that the machines emerged as the victors."

"So are humans slaves to the machines now?" asked Trinity, opened eyed.

"In a way. The Matrix keeps them quiet and unaware of their slavery."

"But why?"

"When the war occurred, the machines were dependent on the sun for their energy. As the war began to slip more and more in favor of the machines, the leaders of man hatched a desperate plan. They would cover the sky, shutting out the rays of the sun and deprive the machines of their source of energy, rendering them unable to survive."

"What does the world actually look like?" asked Trinity, half afraid to know the truth.

"Link, show her."

The scenery changed in an eyeblink and Trinity looked in dismay around herself. The ruins of what she could recognize as New York stood out in nightmarish contrast to an angry red-orange sky with clouds that were constantly in motion and crackling with energy. The devastation was complete and absolute, and the barren landscape filled her with a sick sense of finality. The world would never be the same again.

"How long has passed?" she asked hoarsely, her voice barely above a whisper.

"We don't really know. One thousand, two thousand years. The machines rule the surface, and the last human survivors not in their power huddle near the Earth's core where it's still warm."

"There are cities?"

"Only one. We call it Zion; it is our only haven."

Trinity shook her head numbly. "I don't believe it."

"You need to see more."

The scenery changed once more, and Trinity found herself suspended over a dark field, where grotesque red plants were being grown and harvest by weird-looking robots looking like giant boxes on tentacles. Upon a closer look however, Trinity saw that the plants weren't really plants, and that the red things were actually small human fetuses in little pods.

She gasped in shock and felt the content of her empty stomach threaten to come up. "I… I don't feel good…."

Instantly, Trinity and Morpheus were back in the soothing marble hall.

"What was that?"

" Combined with a form of fusion, the human body produces an amazing amount of energy in heat. The machines found all the energy they'd ever need."

"But the people… the babies…" gasped Trinity.

"People are no longer born Trinity; they are _grown_. There are endless fields like the one you just saw, and that is where you come from."

Trinity sat down on the stone floor and rested her head in her hands. "Tell me everything."

Morpheus sat down next to her started to talk.


End file.
